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The Magic Chest 10: Reya Dawnbringer

Reya Dawnbringer 6WWW 4/6
Creature - Angel Legend
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may return target creature card from your graveyard to play.

There are no official Invasion spoilers out and the pre-release tournaments haven't been held yet at the moment I'm writing this. That makes it a bit risky to try to build a deck around an Invasion card. For all I know, Reya may turn out not to exist at all, which would make all this effort a bit wasted. Still, I've spent most of the last few days writing a card-by-card review of Invasion (which you can on the Magic Chest website) and I've got Invasion on the brain. I tried to write something about an old card, but I just couldn't stop thinking about this one.

So, let's build a deck around Reya Dawnbringer. The first thing I noticed about her is that, even though she looks like a white card, she's actually a black one. Nine mana is too much to cast reliably and by the time you do, your opponent will have oodles of ways of dealing with her.

She fits perfectly in a black deck, though. She can be put into play as early as turn one with a fortunate draw (swamp, ritual, funeral charm yourself discarding Reya, animate dead). But that's not enough. She shouldn't just be put into play as fast as possible, she needs to have a few good creatures in the graveyard as well. Survival of the Fittest would help, but that requires a commitment to green, as well as more time than you have. The best idea I can come up with is Buried Alive. It gets you both Reya and two candidates for her to animate.

Let's look at a some cards:

Reya Dawnbringer: If she ends up in your opening hand, you could be in trouble, so you're best off with at least two. Because I'm planning to add searchers that could end up removing her from the game, I'm going to use three.

Buried Alive: The key card that gets you everything else you need. You need four of these plus a few ways to fetch one if you don't get one in your first hand.

Demonic Consultation: It's faster than Vampiric Tutor and not rare. This deck tries to go for a quick win or lock, so Consulting most of your library away will rarely be a problem. You need this mostly to either fetch a Buried Alive or a Dark Ritual, depending on what you need.

Desperate Research: An Invasion card. A sorcery for 1B, which reads: "Name a card other than a basic land. Then reveal the top seven cards of your library and put all of them with that name into your hand. Remove the rest from the game." This is mainly just an additional Demonic Consultation, just in case. It's probably not really needed, but I just like this card, in spite of the fact that Consult is better most of the time.

Reanimate: This is the cheapest reanimation spell there is. It'll cost 9 life to animate Reya, but she's worth it.

Animate Dead: I don't think there's a second animate spell that costs only one mana, and for two mana, Animate Dead works fine. It's a bit risky for Disenchants though, so tutor for Reanimate if you have a choice.

Dark Ritual: As an aggressive deck, you need the fast mana. A first turn Buried Alive, followed by a second turn Reanimate should win you most games. Even if you have to tutor for a component, a third turn Reya is still very strong.

Duress: It's always useful to be able to get a Counterspell or a Swords out of your opponent's hand before they can use it.

Avalanche Riders: This is pretty much the best disruption you can have if everything goes right. The echo kills it, putting it back in your graveyard to be animated again.

Abyssal Horror: Forces your opponent to discard two cards when it comes into play. That's not bad, but it doesn't have echo, which means you can only use it once or you need to add a way to sacrifice this. I wouldn't play with this.

Crosis, the Purger: Another Invasion card, a 6/6 flyer that reads: "Whenever Crosis, the Purger deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2B. If you do, choose a color. That player reveals his or her hand and discards all cards of that color from it." Reusable discard and a fattie in one card. I'd play with two, but this is probably going to be an expensive card to get a hold of.

Peat Bog: A first turn Peat Bog allows a second turn Buried Alive. There's always the risk of getting stuck drawing a Bog when you really wanted a Swamp, but those are the risks.

Hymn to Tourach: Most of the time, I think this card is just too strong to play with in fun games, but this deck has serious problems dealing with cards like Force of Will and Swords to Plowshares, so I'd play with four Hymns in the side to give the deck a fighting chance against those cards. Just the Duresses won't always be enough.

Nekrataal: Normally, you don't need creature destruction, because you're too fast if things go right and you're dead if they don't, but if you meet a faster creature deck, Nekrataal is pretty good. Destroy a creature and get a blocker that can kill most weenies and survive. Bone Shredder is tempting to use because it has echo and is reusable with Reya, but I doubt you'll need it more than once.

Perish: There's very little you can safely take out of the deck and I'm a bit at a loss what else to put in the sideboard. I don't think Perish is necessary, but it's an old stand-by, so why not.

Gloom: Another stand-by and possibly useful against Swords and Disenchants.

Ok, that's enough cards. The way to play it is to cast a Buried Alive as soon as possible, burying a Reya Dawnbringer, an Avalanche Rider and a Crosis, the Purger. Follow that with a Reanimate or Animate Dead on Reya and each turn you bring out an Avalanche Rider until your opponent is out of land. Then bring out Crosis. You probably won't need his ability, but when you do, it's very nice to have. Against certain decks and depending on your opening hand, you might want to cast a Duress first to get rid of a Force of Will or bury two Reyas, in case of a Swords.


Here's the finished deck:

Toastbringer
3x Reya Dawnbringer
4x Buried Alive
4x Demonic Consultation
3x Desperate Research
4x Reanimate
4x Animate Dead

4x Dark Ritual
4x Duress
3x Avalanche Riders
2x Crosis, the Purger

4x Peat Bog
21x Swamp

Sideboard:
4x Hymn to Tourach
4x Nekrataal
3x Perish
4x Gloom

Have fun!

 
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